Tiger and iPod drive Apple's financial expectations higher

Analysts have high expectations for Apple's third quarter earnings results, due on Wednesday July 13.

by
Macworld staff
, | 06 Jul 05

Analysts have high expectations for Apple's third quarter earnings results, due on Wednesday July 13.

First Albany Capital has increased its earnings per share expectations from $0.29 to $0.34 and boosted its revenue forecast by $100 million to $3.4 billion.

Albany analyst Joel Wagonfeld made the changes "to reflect upside potential from Tiger and higher iPod assumptions, offset by lower Mac mini sales," according to a research report obtained by The Mac Observer.

However, Wagonfeld was less positive about the Mac mini, dropping a penny from Apple's EPS estimate as he lowered his sales forecast from 400,000 units to 250,000 units.

But he still has high expectations for the minimal Mac. "We believe iMacs had a solid quarter, so we're maintaining our projection for 210K iMac units," he said.

He also believes that, despite concerns that the Intel switch may make people encouraged to the Mac platform by the iPod wait before making a buying decision, the halo effect of the iPod is happening. "We believe there has likely already been some immediate halo effect due to higher awareness among computer customers," he said.

But Wagonfeld believes that it will be a couple of quarters until the results of the so-called halo effect are seen. "However, we note that, as seen below, nearly two-thirds of total cumulative iPods shipped have been sold within the last two quarters.

"Assuming there is some lag between a customer's purchase of an iPod and that customer's eventual purchase of a new CPU, this suggests it will be at least another quarter or two before the potential magnitude of any halo effect on Apple's CPU sales can be fully determined."